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Pissing off the people doing thankless free labor to keep your subreddits moderated and site functional seems like a poor choice. This is going to be quite an e

Pissing off the people doing thankless free labor to keep your subreddits moderated and site functional seems like a poor choice. This is going to be quite an event when it kicks off Monday.

stavros 3y ago
I used to moderate a lot of large subreddits back in the day, and don't understand why the mods don't just shut them down indefinitely, until reddit capitulates. What, I won't be doing a bunch of free labor for a multimillion dollar company while being called a dictator all day? Yes please! Reddit would probably have to step in and start removing moderators, digging their hole even deeper.
- deminature 3y ago
  Depending on the outcome of the AMA with spez tomorrow [1], and how much it ends up inflaming the situation, that may well happen. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/144ho2x/join_our_ceo_tomorrow_to_discuss_the_api/ https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/144ho2x/join_our_ce...
  - stavros 3y ago
    Oh wow, I didn't know about an AMA. I need to get some popcorn.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - reuben364 3y ago
      I saw rumblings about the AMA maybe beating the most downvoted "Pride and accomplishment" comment. Thinking of that I just yesterday got Diablo 4 and realized just how normalized always online, microtransactiony BS has become. Maybe Reddit too will not so slowly boil the frog.
  - Implicated 3y ago
    They're going to dodge everything. That "AMA" will be nothing more than a PR-fest of non-answers and dancing akin to one tech CEO or another in congressional testimony.
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  Well, one part of the subreddits say they'll be closed for 24 or 48 hours, others have said they'll be closed until this has been resolved. Likewise, several major apps (I know of Apollo and RIF) will shut down on the 30th, before the API changes take effect. I'm sure some people will relent and use the official app / website after that, but others will just quit. I'm not sure yet myself, it'll suddenly make a big gap in my idle mode browsing. I'm sure there'll be other things I can get on with though.
  - stavros 3y ago
    I deleted the Reddit app a few months ago because the comments are a hivemind and it was annoying me, but TikTok seems to scratch the reddit itch without the annoyances.
    - skinnymuch 3y ago
      HN is as much of a hivemind as reddit.
      - stavros 3y ago
        It really isn't. I have a lot of contrarian opinions, and HN doesn't dismiss them as quickly, and there are more people that will engage in reasoned debate with them.
        skinnymuch 3y ago
        HN is a western status quo community. There isn’t much intersectionalism or dissenting ideas. I do see people say what you’re saying, but without giving any guidelines or examples of contrarian opinions that do not get dismissed. From my perspective, the HN you’re describing is equivalent to tech, IT, startup, VC sort of subreddits. Obviously HN has broad news too but the Overton window and acceptable dialogue of HN is limited to how those sorts of subreddits are.
        stavros 3y ago
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Because they like the visibility and the power, they're just as addicted as the users of the subreddits but to a different thing.
hn_thrwn 3y ago
[flagged]
- s9w 3y ago
  [dead]
- deminature 3y ago
  Getting rid of moderators turns reddit into 4chan. If you want that, fine, but there's already a website for unfiltered hate speech and spam.
  - hn_thrwn 3y ago
    Just the current power tripping ones who think they own the site.
  - gymbeaux 3y ago
    It’s incredibly frustrating when you take the time to write something out- something that benefits others and does nothing for you, like sharing your experience or knowledge- only to have the comment removed for one bullshit reason or another. I have never written hate speech or anything racist or in that vein on Reddit, yet I’ve been censored and banned so many times by what I can only assume are children (or children at heart) with too much free time on their hands. I was a mod for a large subreddit for years and not once did I feel the need to ban anyone. The downvote system is pretty effective- the comments and posts that are downvoted enough, and it doesn’t take much, are hidden. There. The commenter retains their right to free speech, and doesn’t get frustrated that they were moderated/censored/punished for expressing themselves, and if the “community” decides it’s a “bad” comment, it’s hidden- effectively deleted as far as anyone who is truly prone to clutching pearls is concerned. That being said, my mental health is way better now that all my accounts have been banned from subreddits I liked and I’m essentially pushed off of Reddit to healthier activities such as touching grass.
    - flangola7 3y ago
      What are some of the verbatim comments you were banned for? On which subs did you post them?
fernandotakai 3y ago
what puzzles me the most is that reddit's reasoning for charging money for their API is that "it's bad that other people are profiting from our work and it's too expensive to maintain without someone paying it". hey, guess what? reddit "profits" a LOT from unpaid work from their moderators. if you wanna charge for API access, you should also pay your moderators since you are profiting from their work.
- gorbachev 3y ago
  The pre-IPO process often involves all kinds of fun short-term profit maximizing activities.
  - jeltz 3y ago
    Yeah, I have personally seen companies inflicting hundreds of millions worth of damages to themselves of not billions as part of pre-IPO work. Extra hilarious and sad to watch when the IPO has to be aborted.
    - bmitc 3y ago
      Why is it so predictable? I know investors don't care about anything other than returns, but what returns do you get when you tank companies in such diametrically opposed ways from how they've operated before?
      - gorbachev 3y ago
        There are different kinds of investors involved in an IPO process. The investors that have pre-IPO stock and who are looking to sell as quickly as possible, gain from IPO pops, so it's in their best interest to maximize short-term profits. That group of investors include a lot of the existing investors, and in almost all cases the founders and C-suite of the company.
  - prox 3y ago
    Honest question, does this include artificial inflation of costs? I have seen figures that Reddit used to run with 20 people, and inflated to 2000 in 10 years. Old reddit is also superlight in bandwidth. New reddit is not.
silisili 3y ago
The context most of Reddit seems to be missing here is that Reddit will do whatever it wants and has many times before in anything they find unsavory. When the speech police benefits the mods, they are all on board with it. Now that it doesn't, they seem so suddenly shocked. These free power tripping mods standing up for themselves can be steamrolled by employees, and probably will be. It happened to more than one sub I was in. They installed their own mods to 'keep the peace', and despite warnings that bad actors were at play, shut down the subs anyways. Curious to see how this plays out.
capybara_2020 3y ago
It looks like they might be prepared for that already in some ways. Reddit used to be a place where you go for relatively unbiased opinions. Some mods and subreddits were better than the rest, some worse. But atleast there was an illusion of being unbiased. Mods to for brand/product subreddits atleast officially were not linked to the company. But that is no more the case, just realized a few weeks back that /r/midjourney is modded by the official team and reddit does not seem to be doing anything about it. Guess Reddit is trying to become more like Facebook with major brands managing their own subreddits, so no more random mods needed.
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  Nah that's not uncommon, plenty of brands will have a social media presence, including Reddit; it's just that (from my perspective), the really commercial ones never gained much traction and didn't rise to the top anywhere. Reddit marketing is done best if it looks grassroots.
  - FragrantRiver 3y ago
    Isn't /r/leagueoflegends/ one of the biggest subreddits?
hcks 3y ago
Can we stop pretending the mods are some thankless workers when they literally do it to get power and status over some “community”.
- mypastself 3y ago
  Yep, if they really think they’re being exploited, they’ll simply quit. It’s much different from relying on the only available, poorly paid job to make ends meet.
damontal 3y ago
Why will it be quite an event? After this brief protest it is business as usual.

Pissing off the people doing thankless free labor to keep your subreddits moderated and site functional seems like a poor choice. This is going to be quite an event when it kicks off Monday.

stavros 3y ago

I used to moderate a lot of large subreddits back in the day, and don't understand why the mods don't just shut them down indefinitely, until reddit capitulates. What, I won't be doing a bunch of free labor for a multimillion dollar company while being called a dictator all day? Yes please! Reddit would probably have to step in and start removing moderators, digging their hole even deeper.

deminature 3y ago
Depending on the outcome of the AMA with spez tomorrow [1], and how much it ends up inflaming the situation, that may well happen. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/144ho2x/join_our_ceo_tomorrow_to_discuss_the_api/ https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/144ho2x/join_our_ce...
- stavros 3y ago
  Oh wow, I didn't know about an AMA. I need to get some popcorn.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - reuben364 3y ago
    I saw rumblings about the AMA maybe beating the most downvoted "Pride and accomplishment" comment. Thinking of that I just yesterday got Diablo 4 and realized just how normalized always online, microtransactiony BS has become. Maybe Reddit too will not so slowly boil the frog.
- Implicated 3y ago
  They're going to dodge everything. That "AMA" will be nothing more than a PR-fest of non-answers and dancing akin to one tech CEO or another in congressional testimony.
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
Well, one part of the subreddits say they'll be closed for 24 or 48 hours, others have said they'll be closed until this has been resolved. Likewise, several major apps (I know of Apollo and RIF) will shut down on the 30th, before the API changes take effect. I'm sure some people will relent and use the official app / website after that, but others will just quit. I'm not sure yet myself, it'll suddenly make a big gap in my idle mode browsing. I'm sure there'll be other things I can get on with though.
- stavros 3y ago
  I deleted the Reddit app a few months ago because the comments are a hivemind and it was annoying me, but TikTok seems to scratch the reddit itch without the annoyances.
  - skinnymuch 3y ago
    HN is as much of a hivemind as reddit.
    - stavros 3y ago
      It really isn't. I have a lot of contrarian opinions, and HN doesn't dismiss them as quickly, and there are more people that will engage in reasoned debate with them.
      - skinnymuch 3y ago
        HN is a western status quo community. There isn’t much intersectionalism or dissenting ideas. I do see people say what you’re saying, but without giving any guidelines or examples of contrarian opinions that do not get dismissed. From my perspective, the HN you’re describing is equivalent to tech, IT, startup, VC sort of subreddits. Obviously HN has broad news too but the Overton window and acceptable dialogue of HN is limited to how those sorts of subreddits are.
        stavros 3y ago
jacquesm 3y ago
Because they like the visibility and the power, they're just as addicted as the users of the subreddits but to a different thing.

hn_thrwn 3y ago

[flagged]

s9w 3y ago
[dead]
deminature 3y ago
Getting rid of moderators turns reddit into 4chan. If you want that, fine, but there's already a website for unfiltered hate speech and spam.
- hn_thrwn 3y ago
  Just the current power tripping ones who think they own the site.
- gymbeaux 3y ago
  It’s incredibly frustrating when you take the time to write something out- something that benefits others and does nothing for you, like sharing your experience or knowledge- only to have the comment removed for one bullshit reason or another. I have never written hate speech or anything racist or in that vein on Reddit, yet I’ve been censored and banned so many times by what I can only assume are children (or children at heart) with too much free time on their hands. I was a mod for a large subreddit for years and not once did I feel the need to ban anyone. The downvote system is pretty effective- the comments and posts that are downvoted enough, and it doesn’t take much, are hidden. There. The commenter retains their right to free speech, and doesn’t get frustrated that they were moderated/censored/punished for expressing themselves, and if the “community” decides it’s a “bad” comment, it’s hidden- effectively deleted as far as anyone who is truly prone to clutching pearls is concerned. That being said, my mental health is way better now that all my accounts have been banned from subreddits I liked and I’m essentially pushed off of Reddit to healthier activities such as touching grass.
  - flangola7 3y ago
    What are some of the verbatim comments you were banned for? On which subs did you post them?

fernandotakai 3y ago

what puzzles me the most is that reddit's reasoning for charging money for their API is that "it's bad that other people are profiting from our work and it's too expensive to maintain without someone paying it". hey, guess what? reddit "profits" a LOT from unpaid work from their moderators. if you wanna charge for API access, you should also pay your moderators since you are profiting from their work.

gorbachev 3y ago
The pre-IPO process often involves all kinds of fun short-term profit maximizing activities.
- jeltz 3y ago
  Yeah, I have personally seen companies inflicting hundreds of millions worth of damages to themselves of not billions as part of pre-IPO work. Extra hilarious and sad to watch when the IPO has to be aborted.
  - bmitc 3y ago
    Why is it so predictable? I know investors don't care about anything other than returns, but what returns do you get when you tank companies in such diametrically opposed ways from how they've operated before?
    - gorbachev 3y ago
      There are different kinds of investors involved in an IPO process. The investors that have pre-IPO stock and who are looking to sell as quickly as possible, gain from IPO pops, so it's in their best interest to maximize short-term profits. That group of investors include a lot of the existing investors, and in almost all cases the founders and C-suite of the company.
- prox 3y ago
  Honest question, does this include artificial inflation of costs? I have seen figures that Reddit used to run with 20 people, and inflated to 2000 in 10 years. Old reddit is also superlight in bandwidth. New reddit is not.

silisili 3y ago

The context most of Reddit seems to be missing here is that Reddit will do whatever it wants and has many times before in anything they find unsavory. When the speech police benefits the mods, they are all on board with it. Now that it doesn't, they seem so suddenly shocked. These free power tripping mods standing up for themselves can be steamrolled by employees, and probably will be. It happened to more than one sub I was in. They installed their own mods to 'keep the peace', and despite warnings that bad actors were at play, shut down the subs anyways. Curious to see how this plays out.

capybara_2020 3y ago

It looks like they might be prepared for that already in some ways. Reddit used to be a place where you go for relatively unbiased opinions. Some mods and subreddits were better than the rest, some worse. But atleast there was an illusion of being unbiased. Mods to for brand/product subreddits atleast officially were not linked to the company. But that is no more the case, just realized a few weeks back that /r/midjourney is modded by the official team and reddit does not seem to be doing anything about it. Guess Reddit is trying to become more like Facebook with major brands managing their own subreddits, so no more random mods needed.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago
Nah that's not uncommon, plenty of brands will have a social media presence, including Reddit; it's just that (from my perspective), the really commercial ones never gained much traction and didn't rise to the top anywhere. Reddit marketing is done best if it looks grassroots.
- FragrantRiver 3y ago
  Isn't /r/leagueoflegends/ one of the biggest subreddits?

hcks 3y ago

Can we stop pretending the mods are some thankless workers when they literally do it to get power and status over some “community”.

mypastself 3y ago
Yep, if they really think they’re being exploited, they’ll simply quit. It’s much different from relying on the only available, poorly paid job to make ends meet.

damontal 3y ago

Why will it be quite an event? After this brief protest it is business as usual.